Gargoyles Blog

I’m Gorebash. I run s8.org. And the reason 99.9% of people visit s8.org is for this Gargoyles web site. Gargoyles is a dramatic animated television show produced by Disney that ran from 1994 through 1997. Fans of the show have come together to form a strong online community. Out of this online community came several important things. First was that we attracted the attention of series co-creator Greg Weisman who still interacts with fans of the show through the online question and answer site Ask Greg. Soon fans started organizing an annual convention called the Gathering. Conventions were held every year from 1997 through 2009. The fans were quite vocal in their support of the show which probably lead to the release of the first season of Gargoyles on DVD in 2004, the 10 year anniversary of the show. The DVD includes a vingette about the convention which included interviews with fans and members of the production. The first half of season two soon followed on DVD, however the second half of season two has yet to be released. The reason most cited for Disney not releasing the rest of the series on DVD is poor sales of the previous DVD sets.

In 2006 a Gargoyles comic was published by SLG Publishing, written by series co-creator Greg Weisman and with artwork on a few of the issues being done by fans of the show who have become professional artists. The roots of this comic can be directly traced to the fandom itself as it was a fan of the show who, at one of the conventions, brought up the idea of a comic and began to investigate its feasibility which lead to an interested SLG who secured the rights from Disney to produce the comics. A total of 18 issues of Gargoyles was produced; 12 “Gargoyles” comics and a 6-issue mini-series called “Bad Guys” which showcased several of the villains within the series.

Bowen Designs released a sculpture of Goliath, the main character in Gargoyles, in 2009. The sculpture is a life-like depiction of Goliath rather than in a style similar to the cartoon. Pictures of what this sculpture look like can be found in this Flickr gallery.

Last year it was announced that Electric Tiki would release their own Goliath sculpture, but that this one would be in a style similar to the cartoon. Greg Weisman was invited to preview the sculpture with its creator Ruben Procopio which you can see in this Flickr gallery. The sculpture is currently available for pre-order with an estimated shipping date of sometime in early 2011.

Since Gargoyles, Greg has gone on to work on many other shows including Spectacular Spider-Man and he is currently working on a new series for Cartoon Network called Young Justice.

This site is just a very small corner of the entire online Gargoyles community. There is a list of other web sites you can use to start your journey through the fandom, or click on the phoenix gate icon on the right of the page’s masthead and let it take guide you to your next stop.

Saturday I was up before 10am and headed down to the registration desk and hung out for a bit. At 10 I decided to catch the Asian Ball-Jointed Dall panel run by Andrea Zucconi. I’d seen pictures of her dolls and figured I’d check them out in person. The big thing about these dolls is just how customizable they are. Not only are there different parts to swap out, but you can even reshape parts and paint them to look any way you want. Andrea does this for a living and she showed some of her work; it was pretty impressive. Then the cost of these things came up and my jaw hit the floor when prices starting at $250 (for a “cheap” doll) and going very high up ($1000) were thrown out. Tony, Andrea’s husband, was sitting next to me and I offered him my sympathies.

After the doll panel I got in line to get Marina Sirtis’ autograph. $20 a pop, which is a bit awkward, but when the hell am I ever going to meet her again? I got two, one for myself and one for a friend. I had no clue what to say to her. I’m sure she’s heard everything a thousand million times before, so I just thanked her for coming out and taking part in the con.

I helped out at the registration desk for a bit so Patrick could go eat and catch bits of the Gargoyles voice acting panel. Sarah showed up and took over as she knew what she was doing. I just knew how to smile and say “let me go find someone on staff”. A few con guests arrived while I was at the table, including Michael Reaves. I didn’t expect to see him at the con and was excited to see him. He needed a con badge made up and the label printer decided his name was too long. Patrick arrived just in time to push the one button needed to shrink the font size down a notch and make the name fit.

I caught bits of the Gargoyles voice acting panel, which included Marina Sirtis and Keith David. It was a bit surreal to see Demona and Goliath sitting next to each other. That panel broke and was immediately followed by the Spectacular Spider-Man voice acting panel. I was able to catch most of this panel. The room was too narrow to fit all the cast and wrapped around on the sides a bit. We had pretty much the entire cast there at the panel. I asked Vanessa Marshall (voice of Mary Jane Watson) to say “Face it tiger, you just hit the jackpot” several dozen times. At least that’s what happened in my head. Her voice is pure sex. It’s like Laura San Giacomo’s (Fox) voice. Put the two of them in a scene together and forget about it. A million pants will need to be changed.

The whole Spidey cast were very, very cool. Very friendly, willing to share stories and talk about the business. They seemed to be happy and having fun with the whole thing.

After the panel, and in the same room, was the radio play rehearsal. Out of 40 or so fans who auditioned, only 13 slots were open and I was fortunate enough to get one. All the pros were there and given their respective on-screen characters to voice. I was cast in the role of Matt Bluestone. The radio play was an original script — a cross-over between Gargoyles and Spectacular Spider-Man. Greg wrote the thing in three days with very little rest (I don’t think you can call it “sleep”) during that time. He said he was a bit nervous about the script, but it was great. Tying the two shows together actually seemed to go pretty smoothly. And thank you Greg for finding a way to get Obsidiana into the script. I could never get tired listening to Elisa Gabrielli do Obsidiana.

After a quick read through it was time to do the show in front of an audience.

To be able to say I acted alongside the likes of Marina Sirtis, Keith David, Phil LaMarr and so on is crazy. How does that happen? It was very cool. Listening to Marina Sirtis voice Demona was surreal. It didn’t take her long to get back into form and *poof* there’s Demona. And she’s twice as scary in person. (That’s not a knock on Marina, it’s a compliment to her voice acting.) Darran Norris doing J. Jonah Jameson (LOUDLY) was spine tingling. The whole time I keep saying to myself “holy crap! it’s J Jonah Jameson! right there! RIGHT THERE!! HAH!”. It took everything to keep myself from giggling like an idiot when I had a scene with Marina Sirtis (as Margot).

The radio play went well. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it, including the cast both pros and fans alike. I’m told Marina Sirtis expressed that she had a lot of fun and was disappointed this would be the last Gathering.

After the radio play I went to the hotel bar with a few people (Susan, Joe, Rebekah, and a couple others I’m totally blanking on like an idiot) and had some beer. I intended to have real food as well but the Blue Mug panel was fast approaching and all I had for dinner that evening was a few Sam Adams. Which may have something to do with my behavior at the Blue Mug.

Early in the panel I was asked about getting on the interwebs and hooking into the projector that was in the room. Nothing had been set up and the panel had already started. No worries. I asked Scott, who was at the panel, if he could start setting things up while I went to my room and grabbed my netbook. When I came back it was a simple matter of plugging the projector’s VGA cable into the netbook and setting up the wireless connection on my machine. All went well and before long we had the Blue Mug Productions web site up and running. Just in time as BMP director Edmund Tsabard walked into the panel to talk all things blue. I walked through the site while Edmund talked about what it was all about.

It was pretty convenient, that tiny netbook. I could cradle it in one arm and play it like an instrument with my free hand. It didn’t take long to get into a groove. At some point Edmund left, but I was a bit busy with the pictures. Just as I was really hitting my stride showcasing the goods Greg Weisman popped back in. Oops.

The panel was light. A bit blue here and there, but nothing terribly raunchy. I just sat back and watched Nikki and Mara draw naughty bits.

After the panel was over Scott informed me of a secret plan to connect Rock Band up to the projector and sound system in the room and rock out with insane bass (until the hotel staff kicked them out an hour later), but I was wrecked. I headed up to the 24th floor with Tony to hang out for a bit with Greg, Jen, Tony, Mara before crashing.

This is a video I took while the cast for the radio play at this year’s Gathering of the Gargoyles radio play assembled and received scripts prior to rehearsal.

We had 16 professional voice actors in the radio play with another 12 or so fans filling out the cast.

The script is an original piece written by Greg Weisman in which the Gargoyles and Spectacular Spider-Man universes cross-over. Greg says he wrote it over the course of three days with very little sleep just before the convention. Everyone agreed it was a success.

Marina Sirtis remarked afterwards that she enjoyed it and was disappointed this would be the last con.

In case you weren’t aware, Greg Weisman, Victor Cook who was a storyboard artist on Gargoyles & Greg Gular, a character designer on Gargoyles and the Art director for the SLG Gargoyles/Bad Guys comics) are connected to the Spectacular Spider-Man series (formerly on Kids WB, now on Disney).

Well, Season 2 of the series has just started airing on Disney, so Greg is making his rounds on the internet talking about the show and answering questions. (He even has been answering questions right here on Ask Greg!)

As a special guest spot on IGN.com, Greg is sitting down and answering fan submitted questions on each of the newly aired shows. If Gargoyles fans are interested in adding their own input on the newly aired episodes each week, email: feedback_tv@ign.com. Your question just might be featured (and possibly answered!)

Warning, the following interviews DO CONTAIN SPOILERS! Click on the links with caution!

I think for me, my most favorite (non spoilerish) parts of the interview were the production aspects and Stan Lee’s insertion into the first episode of the new season.

You never really think about how characters react to the seasons changing and weather getting colder Gargoyles did address this in the epsiode where Elisa is freezing and asks why the Goliath and the others
do not seem to be bothered by it. Gargoyles are not effected by cold weather…or at least have a greater resistance to it.. awesome, wish I had that ability personally.

Anyways, back to Spidey, Greg Weisman addresses how production/budget wise for normal animated shows redesigning all the characters with new outfits for winter, not to mention the background and scenery with snow, is a lot more work, time and money then you would originally think. But I’m glad that the series did this, as it seems to make the story more real as if time is passing.

And of course, a Stan Lee cameo! Nowadays, it seems like you can’t have a Marvel related property without having a Stan Lee cameo! Greg goes into detail on how that was accomplished, what it was like working with him, and just a little cool insight into the process.

Overall thoughts on the second interview.

(Again, I am trying to keep spoilers OUT of these blogs as much as possible, so I figured I would focus on the more developmental aspects of the show that Greg mentions in these interviews. For what characters are revealed and what happens new with Spidey, check out the inside interviews yourself!)

In this interview, Greg mentions how he and the other writers plan out fighting scenes and the actual thought process that goes into developing them. It’s really intriguing to read about the planning and teamwork that goes into something as simple as a 3-4 minute fight scene in an animated cartoon. Greg mentions about finding areas specific to Manhattan that fit the visual and realistic needs required, and the challenges that present themselves. For example, honestly, how many times CAN Spidey get into a fight in a construction area? The teamwork mentioned between the storyboard artists and the writers is pretty neat, so it’s not just a “WRITERS ONLY!” or “ARTISTS ONLY” type project. In this show, everyone is being given their own space to truly create something…well spectacular, when it comes to the show and bringing all these ideas and concepts together when putting together and polishing the ultimate product.

Another interesting aspect is how Greg talks about how he writes stories for the shows. How he wants the show to be amusing for both children and the parents watching it making sure the lines are suitable for all ages, but entertaining as well. He says the writers try to avoid double entrendes and not raise issues amongst children and parents with such dialogue that it is none of their business to be raising. With Spidey’s quirky dialogue, the temptation is definitely there, which makes it all the more challenging to write a character in a child friendly medium. (This especially for a show being aired on Disney!)

PS. Special thanks to Landen Thomas and Gargoyles Twitter Feed for linkage/bringing my attention to the Season 2 Spectacular Spider-Man interviews!

The Sculptures

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